As the village of Larchmont’s temporary moratorium on residential development ticks down, the Board of Trustees will look to extend the ban for three more months in order to flesh out its new planning vision.
If extended, the moratorium would mark nine consecutive months without any residential development throughout the village.
On Monday, June 20 at a Board of Trustees meeting, the village board voted unanimously in favor of initiating a round of public hearings that would consider the benefits of a three-month extension on the current moratorium, which expires on July 15.
According to Mayor Lorraine Walsh, a Democrat, the board—which has been formulating the village’s new proposed site plan laws since January—is still in the midst of reviewing a number of facets of what those laws would entail.
Among the topics of discussion, she told the Review, are specific floor-area ratio requirements, setback alterations, excavation regulation and storm water requirements.
“There’s more study to be done,” the mayor said.
Since the start of 2016, the topic of residential development has become a contentious issue in both the village of Larchmont and town of Mamaroneck, which passed its own—now expired—three-month moratorium in December 2015. Currently, the town is still hashing out its site plan law, sans moratorium.
The passage of Larchmont’s development moratorium, however, has not come without its hitches.
The village has faced the threat of multiple lawsuits from developers, since a series of heated municipal meetings that led to the establishment of the moratorium.
Among the two developers who have filed—and were denied—appeals to skirt the terms of the moratorium is KOSL Building Group, who currently owns the iconic century-old home located on 40 Ocean Ave.; the proposed demolition of which sparked the village’s initial debate over teardowns.
According to Village Administrator Justin Datino, Cuddy and Feder, the law firm representing the property owners of 40 Ocean Ave., have not yet filed a formal lawsuit against the village, as of press time, despite notification that they may do so.
The first round of public hearings to extend the moratorium will be held at 7:30 p.m. on July 6 in Village Hall.
Walsh said that if the extension is passed, different facets of the proposed changes to the village’s site plan law could be passed intermittently over the following three months.
“We don’t necessarily have to pass everything at once,” she said. “It can come out in bits and pieces.”
